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In 2007, when the Commission first considered the
proper classification of then-nascent mobile broadband, the
Commission had a different understanding about the
relationship between mobile broadband and VoIP. At that
time, the Commission considered VoIP applications to be a
separate, non-integrated service, such that VoIP’s ability to
connect internet and telephone users was not thought to
render mobile broadband an interconnected service. See 2007
Wireless Order, 22 FCC Rcd. at 5917–18 ¶ 45. But when the
Commission revisited the issue nearly a decade later in the
Order we now review, the Commission found that its
“previous determination about the relationship between
mobile broadband Internet access and VoIP applications in
the context of section 332 no longer accurately reflects the
current technological landscape.” 2015 Open Internet Order,
30 FCC Rcd. at 5787 ¶ 401. In particular, it concluded that
VoIP applications now function as an integrated aspect of
mobile broadband, rather than as a functionally distinct,
separate service. The Commission therefore found that
mobile broadband “today, through the use of VoIP, . . . gives
subscribers the capability to communicate with all NANP
endpoints.” Id.
In reaching that conclusion, the Commission emphasized
that “changes in the marketplace . . . highlight the
convergence between mobile voice and data networks that has
occurred since the Commission first addressed the
classification of mobile broadband Internet access in 2007.”
Id. The record before the Commission substantially supports
that understanding, as well as the associated finding that the
relationship between VoIP applications and mobile broadband
today significantly differs from that of 2007. For instance, in
2007, Apple’s iPhone—the only device at the time even
“resembling a modern smart phone”—had just been released
and was available through only one mobile carrier. Letter
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